Born Again

"unless a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God". John 3:3 -12

I shall now dwell on the phrase ‘born again’. To be born again means to be born from the Spirit. For a man to be born again from the Spirit – this is a new situation for the human consciousness. The wheat grain may be in the barn for years and it may retain the shape it had originally, but in a situation like this it won’t understand the world as it is. So, the wheat grain must leave the barn, must be planted in the ground, must come in touch with light, warmth, air and water. Thus it will implement its internal life; it will start growing and developing. Growing is a common process for all beings. For man, however, growing is preconditioned by the level of development of one’s consciousness.

Examining the plant kingdom, you will see that plants are not born the way the beings from the animal kingdom are, but they spring up, grow and develop, passing at the same time through external and internal processes and great ordeals and hardships. Before being born man also passes through such processes. Delivery [being born] is preceded by a number of internal processes. Those, who do not understand the intelligent laws of nature and what the Primary Cause created, lose heart, as they cannot find the good [things] and happiness in life. They look for happiness where it does not exist. Can the wheat grain find its happiness in the barn? No matter how many years it may stay in the barn, it will remain closed, confined for the world. There it is under external favourable conditions; however, these conditions can contribute nothing to it. The wheat grain must get out of the conditions of the barn in order to attain something. Those who do not understand life, when encountering suffering, regret that they have abandoned [forsaken] their peace. The wheat grain that is in the barn must know that it faces two alternatives and [that it] has to choose one of them: either to enter the earth and then to undergo a number of internal processes of suffering and joys or to pass through the mill, to sacrifice [itself] externally. If it chooses neither of the two alternatives, it will remain in the barn, where mice will attack it in the end.

Facing these two alternatives, contemporary people slip in contradictions and do not know what to undertake. Staying in the barn for long, is good, they will have a quiet and peaceful life. How long can they stay under such conditions? They cannot stay for a hundred years. Then [what]? A day will come when they will be taken out of the barn against their will. What if it is too late then and they cannot accommodate to the new life conditions? In such a case it’s better for them to get out of the barn and to plant themselves in the field, so what they are destined [meant] for can happen. More fearful it is for them to enter the mill. [You should] Know that it is barns that are made for wheat, not wheat for the barns. The earth is a condition under which man can try God’s goods, can grow and develop [oneself]. The earth is created for intelligent people, who understand the laws and can apply them. From the outside the Earth looks unsettled, unorganised. Only those who understand the laws can detect the intelligence directing all the worlds, not only the earth. The human suffering is a result from being unaware of that supreme order which exists in the entire life. When the child goes to school for the first time, it encounters difficulties, until it grasps what is being taught [to it]. It takes at least 16 years until this child grows up, becomes a lad and completes his university studies. What a discipline this lad must have had! How many teachers has he changed; how many times he has stained hands in ink and cleaned them! How many books has he bought, what deprivation what hardships and suffering has he undergone while acquiring knowledge! It is easy to say afterwards that this one or that one is an educated person.

Contemporary people expect certain goods on the earth. Whatever goods they may gain these will be temporary. Why? – Because present day people lack an element with whose help they would keep hold of all the goods they gain. This element will come to life with the birth of man from the Spirit. Man has to be born again from the Spirit in order to rid oneself of the evil conditions of the present life. Under the conditions man lives today one faces death. Whatever wealth one may attain today, one will inevitably lose it. He will be robbed by bandits the way wealthy people are robbed. Not understanding the law, many find comfort in the thought that when they leave for the other world, they will be at least in heaven in good affluent conditions. Entering heaven under affluent conditions depends on the law about being born again. Christ says, ‘If you are not born again, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God’. Only the one born from the Spirit is a master of the conditions. The sick needs an external help, not the healthy one. A healthy person is a free person. A healthy person needs no external help. Whatever he needs, he does it on his own. A healthy person can be compared to a man born from the Spirit.

So, life, as a Great School, opens two paths for the people: the path of suffering and the path of the mill. The one who chooses the first path will be planted like the wheat grain in the field, where one will undergo a number of hardships and suffering; the one who chooses the second path will stay for years in the barn, from where some day one will be taken out and put through the mill. It is preferable for one to be sown in the field, rather than to pass through the mill. One will have an opportunity to grow in the field, to blossom and to set fruit. Most people today pass through the mill, and subsequently they die, disappear, and leave no mark [trace]. However, both paths have their good sides. Through suffering people prepare for a higher life than the one they are living today. The wheat suffers and learns from its suffering, and the people eating it, use its lessons as well as the goods it contains within [itself]. The people that die today learn something both from life and death, and the coming generation benefits from their experiences as great attainments of life. What is important is what is happening today, what man can do today! It won’t come from outside. Only the conditions exist outside, while the abilities are contained in the very person. The wheat grain contains these abilities in itself, and the light, air and water are the conditions under which the wheat grain can manifest its abilities. Christ says, ‘If the wheat grain falls in the field, it bears a hundred times as much fruit’.

Contemporary people are scared of suffering. Whatever they do they will inevitably experience suffering. No matter how little or big the suffering is, it goes hand in hand with every person. Such is the path of man. One point is important: which path will one choose – the path of sowing or the pass of grinding [in the mill]. The one, who prefers the suffering in the field, will grow and bear fruit; the one who prefers the suffering of grinding, will pass and depart through the mill, without leaving any fruit after oneself. We endeavour to free the wheat from the mill. It’s not written anywhere that wheat has to be ground. If it is ground, this happens according to a human law and order. You have to know both laws – the human and the Divine, in order to understand the internal processes in life.

‘If you are not born again’. What has one to be born again from? The new birth implies birth from the Spirit. The one born from the Spirit is a noble person, one having an elevated consciousness. The world is not dead for such a person; man is not wolf to man, as the proverb "Homo homini lupus" reads. For him valid is the idea articulated by Christ that man is brother to man. Only brotherhood is possible for man. Brotherhood is an expression of the love of the one born again. Only the one born again is aware what brotherhood is. Seeing a man in the face, the one born again sees a brother.

Hence every teaching that places brotherhood as a foundation of human life is immortal. This teaching can be applied as the art of living. Every art is useful inasmuch as it can be applied. Why should you need a foreign language if you cannot apply it to acquire new knowledge? Why should you need light if it cannot reveal the world before you? Without eyesight, without light, man remains blind, ignorant. The world is a closed book for the ignorant. New feelings and abilities awaken in the one born again – feelings and abilities that he himself has not expected. He sees things closely and from a distance too. He sees what is going on in this town and in that town. These are things not within the reach of those who were born in the usual way. The one born from God cannot fall into the trap of bandits. He is free also from the evil conditions. Why? – Because everything is foreseen. When passing through a forest, he knows in advance where the bandits are and avoids them. The one born from God has a light [luminous] mind, which sees things clearly.

Many aspire to the spiritual life, but they have to know that spiritual life demands man to understand the abilities one has within. As long as he understands and knows what abilities he has, he may make use of [draw on] the goods of life. What abilities are there in fish? Fish has one ability – to swim in water. It cannot speak, cannot write, cannot listen to lectures. If it wants to attain another ability, different from what it has, the fish has to go out of water, to leave these unfavourable conditions. What can fish become? It cannot become man, but it has the ability to become a bird at least. As a bird it cannot have great abilities either. The only form that allows more potential for attainment of goods is the human [form]. Under the word ‘man’ we understand only the one born from God. To be born from God is not a simple process. In order to arrive to a rebirth [new birth], man has passed through many processes. Without thinking man asks, whether there is another world, apart from the one on the earth. This man knows only one world, but he does not know even it properly either. He does not know that even in the world he lives, a number of complex processes take place. The fish also asks whether another world exists apart from the fish world. There is another world apart from the fish world – this is the world of birds, of the flying beings. If a bird asks whether there is another world apart from their own, we shall tell the bird that there is another world, apart from the birds’ world – the world of the mammals. If a mammal asks the same question, we shall tell the mammal that apart from their world there is another one, a better organized and higher world – the world of the people. If a man asks whether there is a higher world than the human world, we shall tell him that there is a world higher than the human one – this is the world of the angels. The beings from the world of the angels have more appropriate and broader understandings than the human ones. There are no prisons, gallows, cemeteries in the angels’ world; there are no tortures, misfortunes, disputes in the angels’ world. There is a great abundance of food and drinks there. All have the conditions to study, to develop. There everybody lives as long as one wants to. – Is this true? To me, who sees things, this is true. I need no faith, there is no point convincing me. I believe in what I see. A blind man was sitting with me and he asked me, ‘Do you believe in light?’ – There is point believing in light, I see it. The blind one needs no faith, but for those seeing faith transforms into knowledge.

‘Unless a man is born again, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God’. Rebirth implies opening of a new world, which man must enter. If you do not enter this world, you will remain under the evil [bad] conditions in the life of suffering. Even if you are rich, you will waste [lose] the good conditions. As soon as you enter the new world – the world of God, you will be surrounded by a new light that will broaden your horizon. Don’t states [countries] do the same? When a new state is set up, a new order and organization is immediately introduced, which safeguards it from external enemies, which provides conditions to its subjects for a good peaceful life. Which state which Kingdom is best organized? Best organized is the Kingdom of God. Who can enter this Kingdom? The Scripture reads, ‘Those born from God can enter the Kingdom of God’. When entering the Kingdom of God, those born from God will say, ‘It’s worth living in this great Kingdom!’

The contemporary world where people live resembles a barn. There are two paths along which people can get out of this barn: either to sow themselves in the field, or to go to the mill to subject them[selves] to the millstone. Some say, ‘Let the mill-stone grind! Dangerous is this mill that grinds! It would be fine if the mill stops grinding one day. Are there any mills in the other world? – There are neither mills nor millers there. Wheat is as big as pears in the other world and it grows on trees. It is enough for you to pick a grain in order to be well fed. When you go to the tree where wheat grows you will hear its voice. ‘Please, help yourself; eat as much as you feel like!’ Can wheat talk? – This is a figurative expression. The Bulgarians often use the expression ‘I feel like eating you’. Can man eat man? Only the intelligent is eaten.

Christ says, ‘If you do not eat from my flesh and if you do not drink from my blood, you have no life in yourselves’. This means: if you do not eat the Word, you have no life in yourselves. There is one world which needs the Word as food, the way people use it today. The crude [rough] food is gradually being completed by spiritual food. Man eats three times a day and brings into one’s stomach those elements that are needed to maintain the physical body. Apart through the stomach, man feeds himself through the lungs and through the brain. Through the lungs and through the brain one acquires energy from food which is higher than the physical food. There will come a day when people will eat only through their lungs [and] the brain. The scientists have calculated that man breathes 20 times a minute. These are 20 lunch meals. The one born again will not be a slave to the present conditions, won’t constantly worry about tomorrow. Because of too much worrying contemporary people cannot sleep peacefully, cannot enjoy peacefully the goods God gave to man. A good deal of one’s life is spent on worries and confusion [disturbance]. Christ brought in a new positive philosophy to life, which can free man from the present worries and hardships, but this philosophy was not understood, either at the time or now, by contemporary Christians. And then someone is going to say that they are Christians. The one who only bears the name of Christ is not a Christian. Christian, in the complete sense of the word, can be called the Son of God, i.e. the one born by the Spirit. Therefore in the future religion all the people will be born by God; will make one large family whose members will be like brothers for themselves. Everybody will be ready to sacrifice oneself for one’s brother. Then you will not meet a person needing anything. Nobody will blackmail anybody.

I am asking: can’t this happen as early as today? What prevents people from loving each other and [from] living like brothers? Who brings people together? Who has gathered us here today? God, God’s Love unifies people. This is a great truth that is being tested everyday. Therefore, this truth you can test even at this hour. The one born from God has tested this truth and lives according to it. Those, who enter the new conditions of life, need no proof about the other world. To prove the existence of the other world is the same as to prove the existence of love. It is pointless to prove to people whether there is or there isn’t love. Wherever love is, there is life. When there is no love, life disappears. The coming of love implies resurrection of the soul. Those who attain love, they are resurrected; those who lose love, they die.

The present phase of life is a loveless phase. Can man be resurrected loveless? Lovelessness mortifies [kills]. I do not mean the death of the shell. Lovelessness brings in another, more fearful death. If man loses only one’s shell, man will put on another form [shape]. However, man aspires to producing such a form [shape] that does not give in, [succumb] to the evil [bad] conditions, which does not change. This new form [shape] will carry immortality in itself. This was said by Christ in the line, ‘What is born from the flesh is flesh; what is born from the spirit is spirit’. The one born from the flesh will live in one way; the one born from the spirit – in another. The first one will pass through the mill, while the second one – through life. The first one will be fruitless; the second one will bear fruit. The first one will make [form] a brotherhood, which will fade away within four generations, all the bonds [ties] between born brothers and sisters will disappear. Any brotherhood, any kinship between people, who were connected with each other by flesh, will disappear not longer than two hundred years afterwards. The second path, i.e. the born from God, will make [form] a lasting brotherhood. The connections between people born from God will last at least for 25 000 years. This stability, this perseverance of the connections will provide opportunities for the intelligent forces, acting upon the human soul, to complete [finish] their work.

Remember that everything intelligent assists the development of the human soul: stars, suns, planets – the entire nature works for man. Everything that surrounds man, internally and externally, works for one’s up-bringing [training]. The Sun rises and sets for the children of God, for those born from God. Those, who have already been born, have tested this; those, however, for whom the conditions are now under preparation, will test it too. Christ told Nicodemus … Nicodemus did not understand this truth and asked Christ, ‘How is it possible for an old man to enter his mother’s womb for a second time and to be born again?’ Christ answered to him, ‘The one born from the flesh is flesh; the one born from the Spirit is spirit.’

What is the difference between these two processes, these two ways of being born? Man resembles a wheat grain. A gentle hand will come, will take the wheat grain from the barn and will sow it in the field. It will tell the grain, ‘You will pass through a little suffering, but you will blossom and will set fruit and will mature.’ The wheat grain will test this and will rejoice. Another gentle hand will enter the barn; it will take out the wheat grain and will say, “I shall now take you to the mill to pass through the millstones, to become flour. You will pass through a little suffering, but your price will go up.’ Which situation is to be preferred: to pass through the field and bear fruit or to pass through the mill stones and your price to go up? The first situation is preferable – for a man to pass through suffering but to bear fruit. This situation presents the Divine order of things. The second situation – passing through the millstone, presents the human order of things. Under the word mill, in this particular case, I mean not understanding things that human beings themselves created. Under the word field I mean everything that the Primary Cause created.

Therefore I wish everybody passes through the suffering of the field in order to attain that knowledge that will lead man to a rebirth, to being born again from the Spirit. For a man to be born again from the Spirit it means to join the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is a condition for the advent of love among the people.

What has been born from the Spirit is spirit; what has been born from the flesh is flesh.’ What is born from the Spirit implies being born from the Intelligent, from the Great beginning of life.

14 August, 5 o’clock in the morning.